Roadside “noise cameras” are to be installed for the first time in Belgian cities to crack down on noisy motorists.
Local authorities have put in planning applications to erect the acoustic detection systems in both Brussels and Gent.
The Belgian Highway Code rules that cars, lorries, and motorbikes are not allowed to exceed 95 decibels – roughly the same level as an aircraft flying over at 1,000ft.
The systems work similarly to speed cameras by taking a photograph of the number plates of vehicles judged to have breached the noise limits.
Belgian politicians were reported to have acted after a glut of complaints about modified cars and mopeds that are loud enough to wake up entire neighbourhoods late at night.
“We are also looking for a more efficient system to act against this antisocial behaviour,” a spokesman for Mathias de Clercq, Gent’s liberal mayor, said.
“Today we can seize such extremely loud vehicles or two-wheelers administratively. But that has to be done in the act, which means a lot of work for our police and the number of beats in practice is rather limited.”
Pilot projects
This is why Mr de Clercq has looked to pilot projects in the Netherlands and France to stamp out noisy vehicles. Amsterdam hopes to be able to start handing out fines for offending motorists as soon as this year.
In France, the authorities are waiting for legal permission to start using “sound flash stations”, which consist of a camera and four microphones that track passing vehicles.
The producer of the Meduse believe its system can filter out ambient noise to give watertight readers, amid concerns the readings will be legally challenged.
Road safety experts in Belgium also believe the country will have to change the law in order to punish noisy motorists.
“The development of a legally closing sound flash is not so easy in practice,” Stef Willems, of the road safety institute Vias, said.
“What if the moment a possibly too loud car passes such a speed camera, a plane also flies over at the same time? Is the measuring still sufficiently reliable?”
He added: “The law today allowed automatically operating speed cameras to process speedings. But there are no so-called noise violations at the moment. So that should be put in order first.”
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